Disability multilevel modelling in first episodes of psychosis at 3-year follow-up

The description of longitudinal bio-psycho-social profiles in FEP samples may be useful for the prediction of disability trajectories. This study aimed to describe the differences between disability status of FEP patients at baseline and their change over time, analysing how variables associated to the psychological status, and the environment of the patient can affect his or her disability trajectory, once the influence of health condition and socio-demographic variables has been controlled for. Using data from a 3-year follow-up study on early psychosis (PAFIP), a multilevel structure in which the longitudinal measurements (within level) were nested within the individuals (between level), was modeled. The contribution of the different time-varying and time-invariant variables to the patients' disability outcomes was tested through eight nested models. Consecutive models, that successively added health related, socio-demographic, psychological and environmental variables to the unconditional model were estimated, by means of deviance and fit statistics. The present work revealed the importance of psychological and environmental factors in the explanation of disability changes in the context of FEP. We may conclude that longitudinal assessments of time-varying predictors - living situation (b=-0.10, p<0.05), economic support (b=0.11, p<0.01) and insight (b=-0.08, p<0.05) - explain a relevant amount of disability variation over time, independently from symptoms' severity, duration of untreated psychosis, age, gender and years of education. Additionally, the level of premorbid adjustment (b=0.05, p<0.001) was associated to differences in disability outcomes among FEP patients.